About

The diorama is a dying species. Developed as a simulation of reality in the 19th century, it evolved into an exhibition display of the presentation and representation of different species and cultures in both natural history and ethnographic museums. Dioramas always fascinated audiences but are now silently disappearing from museums. The remaining dioramas in ethnographic and natural history museums are exhibits of ambivalent regimes of the gaze which can tell us how we have learned to see the world.

The diorama has been used since the 19th century in an attempt to produce an exact and objective representation of landscapes, nature or other cultures and animals. Starting as a theatrical device, invented by Louis Daguerre in the early 19th century, it subsequently became a display for wild animals, exotic faunas and later, cultures. Dioramas staged a specific idea of the reality of another place and / or time in a very detailed way. The attempt is driven by the assumption that one can capture the world in its totality and complexity. In the spirit of the enlightenment and in the name of rational science, the conviction grew that by arranging artefacts in front of a backdrop, housed in a constructed environment, a true image of the object of representation could be reproduced. The birth of the diorama in ethnographic museums came out of a enlivenment of the inanimate.

The project Staging Dioramas is an ongoing curatorial research project, investigating how knowledge and meaning are produced in museums through a popular yet controversial form of display. The project focuses in different stages on the relations and conditions in which cultural objects and information are presented through this specific type of display and how an audience experiences them.

Image: American Museum of Natural History New York, Photo: Jessica Páez